“With the support I provide to the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) team, they are able to facilitate awareness sessions and start to change mindsets - there’s a need for respectful relationships where women have equal access to resources and opportunities,” said Wilma Eileen, Gender-based Violence (GBV) Adviser for the Pacific Women Lead at SPC programme.

Advocacy and awareness sessions by the Chuuk Women’s Council’s (CWC) Tongen Inepwineu Counseling Center (TICC) has resulted in changed mindsets, with men now referring women relatives to the centre.

There are the only two crisis centres in the North Pacific that provide counselling services for survivors of violence against women: TICC in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI) Weto In Mour Counselling Centres in Majuro and Ebeye, Republic of the Marshall Islands.

In her role Wilma provides technical support to these crisis centres in the North Pacific. This includes support to the referral system in Chuuk, known as APIMAR Safenet, which includes of a range of ending violence against women (EVAW) stakeholders, from government ministries to the police and CWC.

“This referral system is working really well in Chuuk,” she explained, adding that through the referral system “stakeholders such as the police and the Attorney General’s office have called on TICC to provide counselling service to clients.”  

“Women have accessed the TICC services since 2020 till now. They continue to receive cases for domestic violence and women who are survivors of domestic violence as well as child sexual abuse cases. Over the past two years, around 100 clients have visited TICC,” she added.

Wilma stated that in her line of work as a technical adviser, it is important to continuously find ways of collaboration with partners in-country because they are the experts on the ground.

Wilma’s ongoing technical support to North Pacific crisis centres includes training on gender and basic counselling skills as well as counselling supervision. Her support also includes skills training on telephone counselling for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), which has extended to partners in other parts of the region last year including Papua New Guinea. 

“We continue to provide technical support as requested with regard to counselling, but we also support them in terms of their work creating awareness on the issues of domestic violence, sexual harassment and sexual abuse of children,” she said.

In the recent past, COVID-19 has shifted counselling modalities towards telephone counselling due to restrictions in movement.

“During the height of COVID-19, the development of the ‘‘Telephone Counselling for GBV Survivors: a Pacific Toolkit’was done by technical advisers and with the counsellors in TICC and WUTMI,” she said. These technical advisers were supported through Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development and the resource as well as the work to socialise it has now transitioned to the new Pacific Women Lead at SPC programme.

The Pacifiic toolkit was refined through pilot training sessions with the WUTMI, Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC), Tonga National Centre for Women and Children (TNCWC), the Tonga Women and Children Crisis Centre (TWCCC), the Vanuatu Women’s Centre (VWC) and the Family Support Centre in the Solomon Islands (FSC). 

Central to the toolkit’s development, was GBV counsellors’ sharing of lessons learned and reflections on practice.   

The eight-module course provides extensive practical exercises and real-life scenarios, to assist learners to develop the practical, ethical and ‘do no harm’ skills needed for the professional delivery of GBV telephone counselling. 

While COVID-19 community transmissions only happened this past year in Chuuk, FSM, and RMI after their international borders re-opened, remote training for counsellors in 2020 and 2021 on GBV telephone counselling gave them the opportunity to prepare.

“It was good practice to have these counsellors co-develop a toolkit, undergo the training and also have the supervision support that prepared them for the response to community transmissions,” she said. 

According to Wilma, their active participation in the co-design of the toolkit embeds skills that are not only useful during times of limited movement but provides the skills to connect with clients who seek their services via phone outside of Weno as well as Chuuk State.

About Pacific Women Lead 

One of the largest global commitments to gender equality, Pacific Women Lead aims to promote women’s leadership, realise women’s rights, and increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts.

The Pacific Women Lead (PWL) programme at the Pacific Community (SPC), termed PWL at SPC, has more than AUD 55 million dedicated to its work under the Australian Government’s AUD 170 million Pacific Women Lead portfolio. This partnership with the Australian Government commits SPC to deliver the PWL programme, as the cornerstone for the portfolio.

“Gender and human rights statistics: no measure has ever been so important towards envisioning a society that is equal and safe for all of its members,” said Akhona Nkenkana, SPC’s Statistics Adviser for Gender and Human Rights.

Quality data and statistics for gender and human rights including registered births and deaths, can guide the implementation of policies, services and laws contributing to change such as ending child marriage.

“A great example of how data can contribute to improving the lives of Pacific people, is the case of girls and young women who are now protected by law to marry later in life. That means girls can, for example, remain at school to complete their education rather than marrying young,” Akhona said.

She explained how data gathered on women married before 18, referred to as child marriage, can be used by government, civil society and others to make positive changes to legislation. In Tuvalu, data was a central component of the process behind Tuvalu’s Marriage Amendment Act No. 10 of 2015. It proposed to increase the minimum age of marriage from 16 to 18 years, and came into effect in January 2016.

This change reflects recommendations by various treaty bodies and responds to the Tuvalu Demographic and Health Survey that found nearly one in 10 girls (9.9% in 2007) were married before the age of 18,. Following adoption of the new laws and other initiatives, the latest statistics found the rate reduced to one in 50 (2% in 2019), as detailed in the Tuvalu Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. All data is available on the Pacific Data Hub.

Gender and human rights data complements Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), which registers critical life events such as births and deaths that provide crucial information for a country to develop relevant public policies. Advancements for CRVS, including the development of specific national CRVS, have emphasised that an efficient, accurate and cost-effective registration system contributes to the achievement of basic human rights through improved planning for access to education, health, law and justice, and other public services where proof of identity is required.

With a focus on these two issues, Akhona Nkenkana, works with partners regionally and globally to fill the gap for quality, reliable statistics and data in the Pacific region – a gap shared with many other regions in the world.

“At a policy level you are going to have impact as a result of the availability of data. At an individual level data plays a level of empowerment – people have a great knowledge about topics when quality data is available,” Akhona said.

Central to her work is to support implementation of the Pacific Roadmap on Gender Statistics. Its objectives are to work with national, regional, and international organisations in the Pacific to improve data availability on gender statistics – ensuring data is available and has a high level of quality and reliability.

This work also contributes towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) progress reporting for SPC member states and the development of key indicators for the Pacific’s progress against SDG 5 on gender equality.

“The work on gender, human rights and CRVS to ensure the availability of robust data is essential in the implementation of gender equality and human rights standards and commitments, to support policy formulation, impact assessment and transparency,” Akhona explained.

“With the support I provide to the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) team, they are able to facilitate awareness sessions and start to change mindsets - there’s a need for respectful relationships where women have equal access to resources and opportunities,” said Wilma Eileen, Gender-based Violence (GBV) Adviser for the Pacific Women Lead at SPC programme.  

Advocacy and awareness sessions by the Chuuk Women’s Council’s (CWC) Tongen Inepwineu Counseling Center (TICC) has resulted in changed mindsets, with men now referring women relatives to the centre. 

There are the only two crisis centres in the North Pacific that provide counselling services for survivors of violence against women: TICC in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI) Weto In Mour Counselling Centres in Majuro and Ebeye, Republic of the Marshall Islands. 

In her role Wilma provides technical support to these crisis centres in the North Pacific. This includes support to the referral system in Chuuk, known as APIMAR Safenet, which includes of a range of ending violence against women (EVAW) stakeholders, from government ministries to the police and CWC. 

“This referral system is working really well in Chuuk,” she explained, adding that through the referral system “stakeholders such as the police and the Attorney General’s office have called on TICC to provide counselling service to clients.”   

“Women have accessed the TICC services since 2020 till now. They continue to receive cases for domestic violence and women who are survivors of domestic violence as well as child sexual abuse cases. Over the past two years, around 100 clients have visited TICC,” she added. 

Wilma stated that in her line of work as a technical adviser, it is important to continuously find ways of collaboration with partners in-country because they are the experts on the ground. 

Wilma’s ongoing technical support to North Pacific crisis centres includes training on gender and basic counselling skills as well as counselling supervision. Her support also includes skills training on telephone counselling for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), which has extended to partners in other parts of the region last year including Papua New Guinea.  

“We continue to provide technical support as requested with regard to counselling, but we also support them in terms of their work creating awareness on the issues of domestic violence, sexual harassment and sexual abuse of children,” she said. 

In the recent past, COVID-19 has shifted counselling modalities towards telephone counselling due to restrictions in movement. 

“During the height of COVID-19, the development of the ‘‘Telephone Counselling for GBV Survivors: a Pacific Toolkit’was done by technical advisers and with the counsellors in TICC and WUTMI,” she said. These technical advisers were supported through Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development and the resource as well as the work to socialise it has now transitioned to the new Pacific Women Lead at SPC programme. 

The Pacifiic toolkit was refined through pilot training sessions with the WUTMI, Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC), Tonga National Centre for Women and Children (TNCWC), the Tonga Women and Children Crisis Centre (TWCCC), the Vanuatu Women’s Centre (VWC) and the Family Support Centre in the Solomon Islands (FSC).   

Central to the toolkit’s development, was GBV counsellors’ sharing of lessons learned and reflections on practice.     

The eight-module course provides extensive practical exercises and real-life scenarios, to assist learners to develop the practical, ethical and ‘do no harm’ skills needed for the professional delivery of GBV telephone counselling.   

While COVID-19 community transmissions only happened this past year in Chuuk, FSM, and RMI after their international borders re-opened, remote training for counsellors in 2020 and 2021 on GBV telephone counselling gave them the opportunity to prepare.  

“It was good practice to have these counsellors co-develop a toolkit, undergo the training and also have the supervision support that prepared them for the response to community transmissions,” she said.  

According to Wilma, their active participation in the co-design of the toolkit embeds skills that are not only useful during times of limited movement but provides the skills to connect with clients who seek their services via phone outside of Weno as well as Chuuk State. 

About Pacific Women Lead  

One of the largest global commitments to gender equality, Pacific Women Lead aims to promote women’s leadership, realise women’s rights, and increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts. 

The Pacific Women Lead (PWL) programme at the Pacific Community (SPC), termed PWL at SPC, has more than AUD 55 million dedicated to its work under the Australian Government’s AUD 170 million Pacific Women Lead portfolio. This partnership with the Australian Government commits SPC to deliver the PWL programme, as the cornerstone for the portfolio. 

“Gender-based violence research contributes to change in a number of ways,” said Kim Robertson, an Adviser with the Pacific Community (SPC) Human Rights and Social Development (HRSD) Division. 

Research can prove the extent of the harmful impacts caused by gender-based violence (GBV) in the Pacific, and also be used to advocate for change in legislation and improved support services.  

“For many women, the research is the first time they have shared or disclosed their experience of violence, a major change to break the silence,” she explained.   

Kim specialises in gender data, statistics and research. She explained doing this specialised research is very complex, and any undertaking will involve the ‘do no harm’ approach to both participants of the research and researchers.  

"Collecting GBV data is hard for researchers and every care is taken so that they are not traumatised by the information and stories shared with them."

Having research that is robust and relevant enables governments, civil society and all organisations working to end violence against women and girls.

For example, many Pacific civil society organisations (CSOs) rely on gender research as the evidence-base to prove GBV is a significant issue and to advocate for improved legal protection, support services and resources for survivors while also implementing programmes to eliminate violence against women and girls. 

Making such an evidence based accessible is also an important part of the change process. Kim has represented SPC in the Reference Group for Toksave Pacific Gender Resource, a unique regional portal for gender research and resources.   

“If you want to find out about gender-based violence in the Pacific, Toksave has over 230 resources related to GBV. This ranges includes tools and guides, briefs, blogs, reports, journal articles, prevalence studies and more about a range of topics including access to services, justice, assessments of specific areas such as Family Protection Orders, GBV and economic empowerment.” 

About Pacific Women Lead 

One of the largest global commitments to gender equality, Pacific Women Lead aims to promote women’s leadership, realise women’s rights, and increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts.

The Pacific Women Lead (PWL) programme at the Pacific Community (SPC), termed PWL at SPC, has more than AUD 55 million dedicated to its work under the Australian Government’s AUD 170 million Pacific Women Lead portfolio. This partnership with the Australian Government commits SPC to deliver the PWL programme, as the cornerstone for the portfolio.

“The gender-based violence administrative database for Chuuk Women’s Council will enable their staff to collect data to influence policy reforms or develop strategies to address violence against women and girls.”

Arti Devi, Database Officer for Pacific Women Lead at SPC programme, explains how crisis centres adopting administrative databases to track volumes of women being counselled as well as identify trends to assist support services, survivors, lawmakers and others address violence against women and girls.

In her role, Arti oversees the data management support to the programme and its partners including the only crisis service in Federated States of Micronesia, Tongen Inepwineu Counseling Center (TICC) run by the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) in Chuuk State. She is also currently designing a database for Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI) and its Weto in Mour counselling service.

The Gender-based Violence (GBV) administrative database is designed as a data management tool for crisis centres moving from basic, paper-based documentation of client information to a consolidated, data-focused electronic approach.

“This database has been set up to complement their services and also provide very clear indicators for them to be able to track, if there’s a repeat counselling session, how often does this particular client come in, and other details,” Arti said.

This database approach is known to assist crisis centres better track their cases, identify trends, and capture overall volumes of violence against women and girls (VAWG) compared to the documentation of client information on paper.

When used in community awareness, VAWG data has proven in several cases, to make women in Chuuk realise the large scale of the problem and to subsequently decide to report domestic violence.

“It can also assist organisations like Pacific Women Lead design future programmes based on evidence,” she said.

About Pacific Women Lead 

One of the largest global commitments to gender equality, Pacific Women Lead aims to promote women’s leadership, realise women’s rights, and increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts.

The Pacific Women Lead (PWL) programme at the Pacific Community (SPC), termed PWL at SPC, has more than AUD 55 million dedicated to its work under the Australian Government’s AUD 170 million Pacific Women Lead portfolio. This partnership with the Australian Government commits SPC to deliver the PWL programme, as the cornerstone for the portfolio.

My Guide to Voting (MG2V) , a youth friendly booklet aimed at empowering diverse young women to think critically about their right to vote and their role in Fiji’s democratic process was launched by the Fiji Young Women’s Forum (FYWF) in Suva this week.

“The MG2V booklet will be a helpful tool in guiding diverse young women when it comes to election day. It will ensure equal and meaningful participation of ALL women,” said Cleo Petra, a co-convenor with the House of Colours. House of Colours is a volunteer based LGBTQI+ advocacy organisation in Northern Viti Levu, Fiji.

The booklet encompasses voices of diverse young women from all over Fiji on how they want their future to be or better off, how they want the present to be. Diverse women's voices are vital for good governance and MG2V would be an important tool for it." she said.

The MG2V Booklet has been published with support from the Pacific Community (SPC), through a grant funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of its US$19.8 million Promoting Just, Transparent and Civic Minded (PROJECT) Governance partnership programme. 

Women are underrepresented across various levels of decision-making spaces in Fiji, despite the fact they make up 49.3 percent of Fiji’s population. Half of Fiji’s population were recorded to be under the age of 27.5 according to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics 2017 Census Results. FYWF is concerned that young diverse women are not provided with meaningful and inclusive opportunities to contribute or be consulted with Fiji’s laws though young women make a majority in Fiji.

Pictured (left to right): Mereseini Rakuita, SPC Principal Strategic Lead - Pacific Women; Bandana Rana and Natasha Stott Despoja, CEDAW Committee members.

15 July 2022

Suva, Fiji – Two leading global experts on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) visited the Pacific region for the first time this week, working with ten Pacific Island governments to help advance work to improve the lives of women and girls in the region.

Over three days, Bandana Rana from Nepal and Natasha Stott Despoja from Australia joined around 100 participants for the Pacific Government CEDAW Learning Exchange held from 12–14 July 2022.

The government delegates from Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu enhanced their skills and knowledge to enable them to better report on and meet their agreed commitment to advance gender equality in the region – something expected of governments after ratification of treaties, such as CEDAW, at least every four years.

This exchange included the sharing of experiences, learning and examples of good practices by Pacific governments as well as through civil society organisations (CSOs) engagements –supported by the visiting experts.

“To find out where your gaps are, what needs to be done in the next 4 or 5 years - that’s what [the Committee] is doing.  This is a clear map, a clear strong mechanism, that every state party should feel is an asset for you, to strengthen you, to create that roadmap for you, for equality, peaceful and just society,” shared Ms Rana.

The CEDAW committee members heard a range of challenges experienced by Pacific Governments faced during regular reporting from the participants. Among these is finding resources, data and statistics and other information needed to show the progress made towards advancing gender equality.

“Gender equality – achieving it is everybody’s business. It’s not up to women, it’s up to all of us. I look forward to working with us all – men, women, boys, girls, non-binary and other people – in order to bring about a world, not just a region, in which gender equality is the norm,” added Ms Stott Despoja.

During her opening remarks, Heike Alefsen, Regional Representative of the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) Pacific Regional Office said, “ I would like to applaud those Pacific Island states that have been meeting their reporting obligations under CEDAW on time and I hope that through this learning exchange, other countries will be encouraged to submit all overdue reports to the CEDAW Committee and establish national mechanisms for reporting and follow ups to assist in their reporting obligations.”

Ms Rana and Ms Stott Despoja travelled to Fiji to participate in the Learning Exchange, with participants joining the event via in-person ‘learning hubs’ in their respective countries.

“By knowing and using the Convention, governments have a powerful tool to guide their policy-making and legislation to ensure that women can enjoy all of their human rights and fundamental freedoms; and for achieving gender equality. We are pleased to support this regional exchange, and thank SPC and OHCHR for their strong and ongoing partnership in working with Pacific Island Governments, CSOs and communities to promote gender equality,” said Melissa Stutsel, Officer in Charge, UN Women Fiji Multi-country Office.

“SPC remains dedicated to supporting member governments with national implementation of their human rights and gender equality commitments, and through this collaboration with our UN counterparts, we hope to see improvements in the lives of women and girls across the Pacific,” stated Miles Young, Director of the Human Rights and Social Development (HRSD) Division of SPC.

The Pacific Government CEDAW Learning Exchange is supported by the Pacific Community (SPC), UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and UN Women Fiji Multi Country Office (UN Women).

SPC’s support includes the Promoting Just, Engaged, Civic-minded and Transparent (PROJECT) Governance partnership between SPC and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Pacific Women Lead programme funded by Australia.

To celebrate women in the Pacific we're sharing a series of Herstories of women and women's movements who have collectively struggled, lobbied, stood in solidarity and supported each other and survivors of violence against women, and triumphed. This is a story of Candida Kaious a woman leader who is the Project Coordinator of Weto in Mour at the Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI).  

Candida Kaious is Weto in Mour’s (WiM) Program Coordinator. She joined the service, which provides counselling and support to survivors of violence against women and girls in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in 2016.

Candida fell into the work by chance, having recently graduated from Marshall Islands College after three years spent teaching primary school . She had gone back to college in the hopes of securing a better paying job to support her young family. Candida initially joined WiM in a part-time role but quickly became passionate about her job – even turning down a better-paying government role as a data entry clerk.

“The more I learned about gender-based violence and gender inequality, and how our culture and beliefs are linked to violence, I then realised there needs to be change. I also realised that I need to change and that I want to give back to the community,” she said.

“That’s what made me stick with this work. Since then, I have changed how I think about gender differences, such as how people think they should behave and dress. It was not easy but I have tried hard have made a breakthrough.”

Candida joined WiM along with four other women, all in their thirties, and together they helped launch the country’s very first counselling service for survivors of violence against women and girls with funding and technical support from the Australian Government. This support continues through Pacific Women Lead, and formerly through Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development (Pacific Women).

None of the women had prior knowledge about gender-based violence and the law so there was a steep learning curve. Besides learning on the job, they have benefited from working alongside Marshall Islands women’s rights pioneers like Daisy Alik Momotaro and Marie Maddison at WiM’s parent organisation Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI).

Candida says there are  number of challenges in WiM’s work including the widely held belief that their work was somehow anti-culture, anti-religion and anti-men - stereotypes they continue to work hard to overcome. 

“When the program was new, people were saying that we were going was against our men, that we are trying to destroy our culture and customs. That what we were doing went against the bible. Through training, we’ve learned to provide appropriate culture-based responses.”

She and her fellow caseworkers employ Marshallese sayings that translate to ‘mothers as caretakers’ and ‘men’s need to protect mothers’ alongside contemporary readings of the bible to make the case for greater equality between women and men.

Candida has taken the time to talk about gender with her father, a pastor, and her husband who previously had traditional ideas about men and women’s roles. Today, they’re both proud and supportive of her work.

By leading a team of women her own age, she has acquired leadership skills.

“I’ve learned to be supportive and lead through example,’ she said.

“And not to think we can do everything ourselves. We need others to get things done.”

To young women leaders doing similar work in the region, she says it is worth sticking it out.

‘This work takes a lot of time and learning but don’t give up. Just seeing these women being empowered and free; there’s a wonderful feeling there.’[1]

ENDS

Read More: 

• Photo book: 'We Don't Whisper Anymore' photo book of Herstories, including a summary version of Candida's Herstory

• -        Photo book of Herstories in an e-flipbook version

To celebrate women in the Pacific we're sharing a series of Herstories of women and women's movements who have collectively struggled, lobbied, stood in solidarity and supported each other and survivors of violence against women, and triumphed. This is a story of Eleanor Mori, a woman leader who is the Coordinator of Tongen Inepwineu Counseling Center (TICC) at the Chuuk Women's Council (CWC). 
 

Eleanor Mori is the Coordinator of Tongen Inepwineu Counseling Center (TICC), the first crisis support centre for women and girls in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Prior to joining TICC, she worked at the Social Affairs Office providing services to elderly and aging citizens. A year into her new job, Eleanor says work at the centre is both challenging and eye-opening.

Seeing women and girls who come into the centre having experienced some form of abuse has fueled her passion for the work.

 ‘‘No child should feel afraid at home,’’ she said, adding: ‘‘A home should be safe. A mother should feel safe. When she is healthy and strong, she can take care of the kids and they grow up to be healthy and strong. When there is no violence in the home that family grows.’’

The establishment of TICC — initiated by the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) — has created a safe space where Chuukese women feel they can finally speak up, something that they are typically hesitant to do. Nationwide, one in every three women in FSM experience physical and/or sexual violence by a partner in their lifetime.[1]

‘‘Our women didn’t really like to talk about what goes on in their relationships and it has been a process to win their trust. Now, when they see TICC staff in their communities, they are more open and talk to us about anything.’'

 The centre’s work is being taken seriously by authorities.

 Where previously three witness statements were needed in addition to the centre’s case report before making its final way to the Attorney-General’s Office for further processing, now the case report alone is enough to begin the investigation.

This is a significant achievement and support for TICC clients. This means survivors are not additionally or unnecessarily burdened. To aid in its work, TICC has established a network of 35 family champions throughout the main island with plans to recruit more in the outer islands. The champions, both young and old, refer clients to the centre and accompany them to counselling and referral services (such as medical, police or legal services) if needed. The family champions are TICC’s eyes and ears in the community.

The centre has trained health assistants (with access to dispensaries and transport) and plans to link them to family champions.

Eleanor’s vision for TICC’s future was recently achieved with the centre’s expansion to include phone counselling. Next, she hopes the centre may create a separate, dedicated space for greater client privacy, a day care centre and shelter, a gap TICC addresses by developing safety plans with clients, who choose a safe house and host family with TICC providing remote support.

‘‘This stuff doesn’t just happen between the hours of 8 to 5,’’ said Eleanor, adding: ‘‘That’s why we need a safe house where mothers can go for the night and stay longer if they need to.’’

Currently the only shelter that exists in Chuuk belongs to the Human Trafficking Division under the National Police.

 On her leadership style, Eleanor says it is all about ‘‘having mutual respect and faith in one another’’ that the assigned activities will be done.

Between TICC and CWC, there are women aged 20 to 60 and balancing the generation gap while providing space and opportunities for the younger women to flourish has been high on her agenda.

Launched in March 2020, TICC provides free, confidential counselling and referral support to survivors of domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment and child sexual abuse through trained safe counsellors.

The centre is part of the CWC, which has received funding and extensive on-going technical support from the Australian Government through the Pacific Women Lead formerly known as Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Program. Tongen Inepwineu means ‘Love of the Family’ in Chuukese.

ENDS